Learning to Waltz (8 page)

“Evenin’, sir.”

Evan swung to the ground, responding in kind. “How does the boy go on, Molly?”

Her face fell. “Ooh, not well at all, sir. He’s coughin’ up blood and rants like old King George half the time.”

Evan frowned. “And your mistress?”

“About dead on her feet, she is. She ain’t hardly left his bedside while you was away, nor ate, nor slept.”

Damn. He shouldn’t have gone. “I know it’s late. Do you think she’d see me for a few minutes?”

“I ’spect she would if I take you up so she don’t have to come downstairs.” They led the horse into the shed, but aside from removing the bit from his mouth and throwing a blanket over saddle and all, left him ready for the return ride to the Manor. Then they entered the house through the kitchen.

Evan followed Molly up the stairs, lit by a single candle in a sconce at the bottom and another at the top, scenting the house with cheap tallow. On the landing, he waited while the maid informed her mistress of his visit.

At Molly’s nod, he entered to find mother and son in the chair by the fire. Mrs. Moore turned toward him, her face white and haggard. Julian’s lay on his mother’s shoulder, hidden in shadow. Evan could see little more than the glitter of his eyes and one thin arm wrapped around his mama’s neck.

“I must apologize for disturbing you so late, ma’am. Miss Latimer’s report of you left me uneasy.”

“It’s good of you to venture out in the cold for our sakes, sir.” Her voice was distant, toneless.

Evan squatted down to look directly into Julian’s face. “How are you, my young friend?” The boy lifted a languid hand, which Evan took and held.
So hot.
“Not quite up to snuff today? Have you been behaving for your mama?”

Julian coughed, wracking his little body, and turned his head away.

He shifted his gaze to Mrs. Moore. “Does that mean no?”

She lifted a hand to her mouth to conceal a yawn. “To tell the truth, I would prefer him to fight me. He is alarmingly docile.”

Evan pulled a stool from the dressing table over to the bed, sitting with his back against the mattress.

His hostess bit her lip. “I’m sorry to receive you here. The accommodations leave much to be desired.”

“Nonsense. It is a bedchamber, after all.” Never mind that his mother’s and sisters’ bedchambers had dressing rooms this size and attached sitting rooms with sofas and chairs to seat a dozen in comfort. The few other “ladies” whose private quarters he had infiltrated were high-class courtesans whose rooms were business suites, after all, though decorated—and scented—for frivolity. Much of England’s population, he supposed, lived in rooms that were smaller and equally foul-smelling. It was something of a revelation.

They spent several minutes discussing Julian’s condition, but Evan learned little. He asked about the bloodletting, expecting to see a shudder or a grimace, perhaps a spurt of rage. But she merely laid her head against the back of the chair, expressionless, looking down to adjust Julian’s blanket. “I saw no change, for good or ill. He’s to repeat the procedure tomorrow.”

“Did Overley say—”

“How was your visit to Nuneaton?”

Evan didn’t believe she cared a whit, but it seemed any questions about the doctor would go unanswered. Impossible to sit still and watch the two of them—he’d tear his hair out. Instead, he stood up and prowled the room while describing the petty details of their sojourn, doing his best to make them diverting. Of his own impatience to return to Whately, he said nothing.

She was half asleep when Evan finished. He stood beside her chair watching the firelight play across her hollowed cheeks, the dejected droop of her mouth, the shadows beneath her eyes. His mouth twisted. So much for his attempt at entertainment.

She jerked awake. “I am so sorry.” She reached out her free hand as though to touch him but hurriedly withdrew it again. “You must think me—”

“I think you are worn out. Can you not put him in bed and get some sleep yourself?”

She shook her head. “He is restless in bed, and it is worst at night. I get more sleep this way—but I assure you I do not usually sleep when we have company.”

“Then don’t think of me as company.” He paused, undecided. “Let me take your seat for a while, if he will accept me. You don’t look at all well yourself, and it will do Julian no good if you—”

“No.” Anger flared in her face. “That’s not necessary.”

“Pardon me, but I think it is.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

Evan wanted to kiss those bruised eyelids, take her in his arms and comfort her. But it was indisputably the wrong time and unthinkable, in any event. Instead he lifted Julian from his mother’s lap. The boy made no protest, wrapping his arms quite naturally around Evan’s neck.

This might be the most honorable thing I’ve ever done
.

It might also be the most foolish.

It was dark when Deborah awoke. She drifted on the edge for some minutes, barely aware that she was in Julian’s little bed rather than her own, hesitant to leave the blessedly mindless void that enveloped her. No worries, no emotion, no uncertainty. Then her feet bumped against the unfamiliar footboard as she stretched beyond the warm circle where she had lain unmoving for—how long?

Oh God, too long, surely!
Her candle had burned out. She scrambled into her gown in the darkness, tying the ribbons any which way, but could find only one shoe. Opening the door to let in a little light from the hallway, she pulled the other shoe out from under the bed and allowed herself one minute to restore a semblance of order to her hair.

She knew she looked a mess as she pushed open the door to the sickroom—oh, the stench!—and was almost pleased to see Mr. Haverfield rumpled as well. In wrinkled shirtsleeves, with waistcoat askew and cravat crushed beyond repair, he stood by the nightstand perusing the collection of vials that lived there now. Julian lay in bed watching him through slitted eyes, his hands fidgeting with a little stuffed pony.

“I am so sorry,” Deborah exclaimed, appalled to see that it was some minutes after midnight. “I never meant to…” More than two hours she had slept while her guest tended her child, even apparently helping him to use the chamber pot. “Let me just…” She moved the offending article into Julian’s room and closed his door.

Mr. Haverfield stared at her as she flustered about, his lips compressed in a straight line, his brows drawn together. He must resent her sleeping so long.

“I apologize again, sir. I don’t know how I came to…” She hastened toward him, expecting him to move aside, but he did not.

Instead, he smiled. Just a softening of his face, really, but she could swear there was sympathy in it. And he did not
sound
resentful. “I’m glad you slept. If you would just sit with Julian, and perhaps help me interpret these rather cryptic instructions. The doctor must be a devotee of riddles.”

“Never mind. I know the dosages by heart.”

Deborah held up Julian’s head while Mr. Haverfield administered the medicines. She kissed her son’s forehead and laid him down again. And still the man lingered.

“I’m afraid you had a difficult time with him while I was asleep.”

“Not so bad. He slept as well for part of the time.”

At last he picked up his coat. “I suppose I should be heading back.”

Julian appeared to be asleep, but she whispered anyway in his ear, “I’ll be right back.” She accompanied Mr. Haverfield downstairs, taking the candle from her bedchamber to light their way through the dark kitchen. Once the door closed behind him, she rinsed her face and filled a pitcher to take upstairs.

The house felt empty without him. She had made assumptions about him at first sight based on his association with Viscount Latimer, his deportment, and his attire. Yet Mr. Haverfield had bothered himself to search for Julian while his friend had not. She knew nothing about him—where he was from, how he lived, what his fortune was, what family he had—yet when he looked into her eyes, she felt soothed… yet perturbed too.

Her father, her brother, her husband—all her limited experience with men told her they could not be trusted. Though her heart might tell her Mr. Haverfield was different, she could not afford to take that chance.

She was keenly aware of her loneliness, there in the dark, though it was a creature that lived with her always. Mostly it just kept her company, sitting at her feet or walking by her side, climbing the stairs with her as it did now. Sometimes, though, it leaped onto her chest and ripped open an old wound that never quite healed.
If Julian should die…

She would not think it,
could
not think it. She stood in the doorway and watched him, drugged with laudanum, more unconscious than asleep. Such a serious child, as she herself had been. And lonely, as well. Her little Jack did not face the giant she herself had feared, yet here they were, confronting the biggest giant of them all. And she could do no more to protect him than her mother had done for her.

She had been thirteen when Matilda arrived, a fairy godmother-aunt dropped to Earth to rescue her from desolation. Matilda spent four years in Lydford instructing Deborah in literature, geography, history, and natural science, boldly taking her to see the dreaded castle and the fabulous gorge of which she had heard so much. Deborah saw that it was possible to defy her father’s tyranny and began to despise her mother’s weakness. And when Mama refused to come away with them, despite all their entreaties and exhortations, that betrayal had torn her apart.

Julian broke out in a fresh paroxysm of coughing. Deborah slapped the pitcher onto her dressing table, water sloshing over the rim, and returned to her place beside him. She drew his head and shoulders into her lap face-down to make the coughing a bit easier. None of Doctor Overley’s remedies had effected any improvement whatsoever. These fits left him utterly weakened, too exhausted even to weep.

They sat that way until the candles guttered and another cold gray day seeped into the room. Deborah rubbed her son’s back, held him together when he coughed, and kept him warm as the cold dread crept into every part of her.

Aunt Matilda had wrested her from the grip of one beast, but Deborah always suspected she had won only a temporary reprieve. If Julian died now, his death would be the price she paid for cheating fate.

A very high price, indeed.

Later that morning, Evan strolled into the drawing room to find Amanda entertaining Whately’s elderly vicar and his wife. “Refused to see us, Miss Latimer,” Mrs. Hepplewhite was saying, “refused us absolutely. I am told the boy is near death. One would think the poor woman would be eager to receive our prayers and blessings. If she has turned away from the Lord since her husband’s passing, then I must say it will not be surprising if He turns His face from her as well.”

She turned to Evan, nostrils distended as though sniffing out evil. “I am also told that she has received
this
young man, into her bedchamber, no less. It is an abomination that a woman who served as this town’s moral preceptress should now be so lost to all sense of propriety.”

The woman faded from Evan’s view—instead he saw Julian’s pinched white face. The vicar said something—Evan heard only his own blood boiling in his ears, and then Amanda, uttering words he did not comprehend. Fury sizzling in his mouth like acid, he locked onto Mrs. Hepplewhite’s sanctimonious blue gaze and challenged, “Were you also told, madam, that
Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself
?”

The woman flushed an ugly red and opened her mouth to respond, but the vicar intervened, patting his wife’s arm. “I understand from the good doctor that Mrs. Moore’s bedchamber is currently serving as a sickroom. And we must remember, too, that Mr. Haverfield saved the child’s life. I think we can grant Mrs. Moore some leniency, don’t you, my dear?”

Her eyes continued to shoot sparks of malice Evan’s way, but her mouth snapped shut into a thin, bloodless line, and she did not speak again. They left almost immediately. Evan held his breath until he heard the outer door close behind them.

Amanda drew a hand across her forehead. “Phew! I’m glad
he
is the vicar and not she. I promise you they would never see my face at church again. One might almost believe they worship different gods.”

Evan had never been so glad to see the back of someone. Still simmering, he uttered some choice epithets as he strode across the room and back. “Who gave her the right to pass judgment on anyone?”

Amanda giggled. “Can this really be mild-mannered Evan Haverfield? I thought you were going to explode.”

“I thought I did.” Evan came to a halt in front of her. “Tell me, did she come here just to berate Deborah Moore?”

“Oh no, there were some other matters. They wanted to assure themselves of flowers from our hothouses for the Christmas service. Not that we have very much, but—”

“I’d stuff the flowers down their self-righteous throats!” He took another angry turn around the room.

“Do stop pacing, Evan. That rug is quite ancient, you know. You might wear a hole right through it.”